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The September issue of The Harvard Salient, a conservative student publication, sparked outrage after one article echoed language from a 1939 speech by Adolf Hitler. The backlash reignited Harvard’s perpetual debate about debate: What is permissible on campus? How should speech be exercised? How should the University police the boundaries of our fragile, unsatisfying free speech policies?

The problem with these recurring controversies — from rhetoric about immigrants and nationality in a publication, to pro-Palestine chants in the Yard – is that they are inevitably followed by a call for Harvard to do something, anything, to punish those we disagree with.

As students, we should resist the impulse to look for a nanny university to mettle, arbitrate, or punish. Discourse at Harvard should first and foremost be a student responsibility.

College Dean David J. Deming’s dismissal of the Salient controversy was the right move. His decision not to “chase” violations of speech guidelines reflects a recognition that once administrators begin policing the content of speech, there is no principled place to stop. That is not a Pandora’s Box any of us should be comfortable opening.

Some have called Deming’s refusal to intervene an abdication of his responsibility to enforce basic respect in discourse. But equal application of “basic respect” as a test on speech is impossible in practice — students should not invoke it to their administrators. Every other flashpoint in campus discourse is proof of this fact.

Consider the pro-Palestinian protests on campus since October 7th. The release of an abhorrent statement blaming Israel for Hamas’s attack, followed by protest chants including “globalize the intifada,” received national condemnation and calls for punishment. To some, many criticisms of Israel amount to an attack on Jewish identity and thus violate “basic respect.”

On the flip side, when University President Alan M. Garber ’76 punished participants in the encampment, some critics accused him of selective enforcement — a “Palestine exception.” Yet the punishment did, in fact, properly enforce protest guidelines prohibiting encampment. The argument about a Palestine exception is based on the idea that the guidelines were selectively enforced, not incorrect.

The heart of the issue, then, is that after inviting administrative action into students’ squabbles over permissible speech, the University’s arbitration will always be unsatisfying. Any discretion will be seen as either too lenient or too harsh, depending on one’s sympathies.

The Salient’s problem with print distribution guidelines is another example. First, House faculty deans said that their print magazines left outside dorm doors were a fire and slip hazard. The Salient argued that those rules were merely a pretext for targeting conservative voices. The College’s eventual compromise to install mailboxes at each dorm room drew backlash from hundreds of students.

This cycle of outrage, administrative response, and dissatisfaction define the story of speech on campus. Each episode sees renewed calls for Harvard to do more, and each response confirms that Harvard can never do enough. The result is a perpetual crisis of overreach and discontent.

Because the University’s discretion will always be insufficient to some, free speech cannot be sustained by regulation. Instead, it depends on students. As long as we continue to expect administrators to rescue us from offensive ideas, we forfeit our own capacity to respond to them.

The College wants to intervene on the student level, introducing the ambiguous Intellectual Vitality Initiative and its commitment to “cultural transformation.” But students looking to the Intellectual Vitality Initiative to solve speech culture are themselves reinforcing the same paternalistic relationship which has caused every other speech problem. Whether the content is offensive or the culture is lacking, we should not expect administrators to solve our problems.

Don’t get me wrong: The College has an important role to play in moderating the procedural rules around speech. It does not matter why you are encamping or causing a fire hazard in dorms, only that you have violated these procedural rules.

But especially at a moment when the federal government is targeting speech it does not like, students should be skeptical of any authority that tries to police content.

What we say should be up to us.

If a publication prints something offensive, the answer is speech, not sanction. If a chant crosses a moral line, the answer is argument, not discipline. Students should not call for an intifada nor should they quote Hitler. It’s our job to say so, not the Dean’s.

The only way to keep discourse free from overreach is to not invite it at all.

S. Mac Healey ’27, a Crimson Editorial editor, is a Social Studies concentrator in Lowell House.